This invention relates to electronic graphics having embedded access to parts information and, more particularly, to a method, computer program product and system that provide automated transformation of graphics into an enriched electronic display containing related reference designation links and access to information associated with the parts depicted in the graphic.
Complex and detailed illustrations, such as parts catalogs and other technical drawings, are commonly depicted in a hard copy form consisting of multiple pages of drawings. Alternatively, the separate drawings may be depicted in electronic graphic form. The drawings contain large amounts of information regarding the parts depicted in the drawings or graphics and the connections and relationships among the parts. Some of the information contained in the drawings or graphics is explicit, such as labels or other text. Other sources of drawing or graphic information are implicit, such as the symbols or configurations.
When a user needs information concerning a specific part depicted in the drawings or graphics, the user must manually search through each page of a large set of drawings or a catalog, either on paper or on-line. For example, in industries that depend on complex technical drawings, manuals and parts catalogs for information about its systems, users must manually search many pages of drawings or catalogs before they can perform maintenance or troubleshoot the system. This typically becomes a lengthy process because the user must study the drawings or graphics to determine the way in which the drawings relate to each other and ensure he has all the drawings concerning the particular part of the system at issue. For instance, a part from one drawing or graphic may also be depicted on one or more of the other drawings or graphics. Thus, the drawings or graphics may have multiple references to the same part, both graphically and in the textual information associated with the part. Searching the hard copies of the parts catalogs and/or manuals to find all of the graphical and textual references to a specific part is very difficult, tedious and time-consuming because of the massive amounts of information they contain. Even if the parts catalogs and/or manuals are on-line, the user nevertheless must repeatedly xe2x80x9cpanxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9czoomxe2x80x9d to find the exact information that they need.
Once users collect all of the drawings, parts catalogs and manuals necessary to provide a comprehensive view of the system upon which they plan to work, they must carry the drawings, catalogs and/or manuals with them to perform the work. Otherwise, the user runs the risk of having to repeatedly return to the central repository of the drawings, catalogs and manuals. If the user realizes he needs drawings and information regarding another part of the system while working, then he must again commence the lengthy searches described above.
As the above discussion illustrates, the process of manually locating and attaining drawings or textual information for a specific part from a large set of drawings, parts catalogs or manuals is a daunting task, even for an experienced user. The process gets much more complicated when the user must also obtain all of the drawings or textual information related to the specific part that is provided by parts catalogs or other manuals. For example, finding each occurrence of a particular part number, detail label or text in a parts catalog generally becomes a very lengthy process because the user must consult large indices of information associated with the parts and determine which reference refers to the particular part at issue. Thus, manually searching large sets of drawings, parts catalogs or manuals for particular parts of a system and obtaining all of the drawings and/or textual information related to that part, is an inefficient, error-prone and expensive endeavor.
For the reasons discussed above, there exists a need for a system that processes complex graphic files to provide users with fast and accurate access to information contained in large sets of drawings, parts catalogs and/or manuals. More particularly, the need is for a system that efficiently performs automated transformation of graphics into an enriched electronic display containing reference designation links and information associated with the parts depicted in the graphic.
In accordance with this invention, a method, computer program product, and system for creating and viewing an intelligent graphics file including information associated with the parts of at least one article are provided. The method, computer program product, and system automatically transform graphics into a format that provides enriched electronic display of the graphic containing reference designation links and access to information associated with the parts depicted in the graphic. Relationships among the reference designations and the ability to access textual information associated with the reference designations of the plurality of parts depicted in the graphic are embedded in the intelligent graphics file. The method, computer program product, and system of the present invention therefore automatically display the particular part and the textual information for that part when the reference designator associated with the part is selected. As such, the present invention automatically produces an intelligent graphics file that allows a user to quickly and accurately find, view and navigate among the parts depicted in a graphic and access the information associated with the parts. The present invention is advantageous because it does not require the user to manually search through large parts manuals. Moreover, the present invention does not require the system builder to manually re-author electronic drawing sets. Therefore, the method, computer program product, and system of the present invention provide an efficient and accurate approach to creating and viewing intelligent graphics files including information associated with the parts depicted in the graphic file that completely avoids the time-consuming and expensive steps of the conventional approaches.
In general, the method, computer program product, and system of the present invention create an intelligent graphics file that includes the ability to access information associated with the parts of the article or articles depicted in the graphics file. Once a graphic representation of the parts of the article and information identifying the reference designations for the parts are provided, the present invention constructs a computer readable object defining the related reference designations. The computer readable object contains the position and content of the reference designations and indicates the related reference designations. The related reference designations are labels that refer to common parts depicted in different portions of the graphic file. The computer readable object then may be combined with the graphic representation to create the intelligent graphics file. The intelligent graphics file therefore may contain both graphic representations of the parts of the article and embedded data structures that define the related reference designations associated with the graphic representations of the same part.
The method, computer program product, and system of the present invention also may provide access to textual information associated with the parts depicted in the graphic representation. The computer readable object may identify the textual information corresponding to a respective part of the article and when the computer readable object is combined with the graphic representation, the resulting intelligent graphic file contains graphics and embedded data structures that identify the textual information. Additionally, the method, computer program product, and system of the present invention may include a database to store the textual information associated with the parts depicted in the graphic representation from which textual information associated with the parts may be extracted. Enabling the textual information to be immediately accessed and displayed in the manner described above saves time and money for users who otherwise would have to look up the textual information in separate indices after finding the illustration of the part in a catalog.
The method, computer program product, and system of the present invention may also provide embodiments in which the computer readable object and, therefore, the embedded data structures in the intelligent graphics file contain instructions to magnify related reference designations. Thus, when the reference designation is xe2x80x9cpointed toxe2x80x9d or selected, the reference designation may be magnified for emphasis. For purposes of the present invention, xe2x80x9cpointing toxe2x80x9d is defined as the movement of a cursor on a display via a selection device, such as a mouse, near the reference designation at issue, without selecting the reference designation, i.e., by placing the cursor on the reference designation without clicking on the reference designation. Magnifying the related reference designations further clarifies the complicated graphics for the user by noticeably indicating where the reference designations are located on the graphic or graphics, further providing the user with a fast and accurate search of graphics.
The present invention also includes a method, computer program product, and system for viewing an intelligent graphics file including information associated with the parts of the article depicted in the graphic representation. Once the intelligent graphics file with both graphic representations of the parts of the article and embedded data structures defining related reference designations associated with the graphic representations of the same part is provided, a graphical image of at least a portion of the article based on the graphic and embedded data structures stored in the intelligent graphics file may be displayed. A user interface of the present invention allows a user to interact with the drawing and move a cursor via a selection device, such as a mouse, to indicate on the display related reference designations and the selection of a reference designation. The present invention may receive selections of reference designations associated with the part of the article being displayed. Upon receiving a selection of a reference designation associated with a part, the present invention may display the textual information associated with the part. In addition, the present invention may concurrently display a graphical representation of the part of the article associated with the selected reference designation.
Further embodiments of the method, computer program product, and system of the present invention include viewing an intelligent graphics file that contains a graphic representation of multiple sheets of a drawing set depicting the parts of the article. When the present invention displays the graphical representation of the part associated with a selected reference designation, the graphical representation of the part may be depicted on a different sheet of the drawing set than the sheet having the selected reference designation. Additionally, the method, computer program product, and system of the present invention also may include embodiments in which a reference designation associated with a part of the article being displayed may be xe2x80x9cpointed toxe2x80x9d with a selection device, such as a mouse. After the reference designation is pointed to, but before the reference designation is selected, a window containing textual information for the part associated with the reference designation is displayed. Thus, instead of requiring the user to manually search or electronically xe2x80x9cpanxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9czoomxe2x80x9d through large drawing sets and indices or databases or parts information, these embodiments enable a user to efficiently search graphical representations of large drawing sets and have fast access to specific parts information.
The method, computer program product, and system of the present invention also may involve providing a link in the intelligent graphics file that is associated with a respective reference designation such that the link associates the respective reference designations with the corresponding textual information. Thus, when a reference designation is selected, the present invention may obtain and display the textual information for the part associated with the selected reference designation. Additionally, the method, computer program product, and system of the present invention may store the textual information associated with the respective reference designations for the parts depicted in the graphic representation in a database. When a reference designation is selected in this embodiment, the present invention may obtain and display the textual information for the part associated with the selected reference designation from the database. The immediate access and display of the textual information as described in these embodiments saves time and money for users who otherwise would have to look up the textual information in separate indices after finding the illustration of the part in a catalog.
The method, computer program product, and system of the present invention also may include embodiments that incorporate graphic file representations of electrical wiring diagrams depicting the parts also depicted in the intelligent graphics file. For example, when a reference designation in the intelligent graphics file is selected in this embodiment, the present invention may display the portion of an electrical wiring diagram depicting the part associated with the selected reference designation. The present invention therefore provides efficient navigation within separate graphic files by recognizing the common elements of the separate graphic files and providing links among the common elements.
Thus, the method, computer program product, and system of the present invention provide for automatically building an intelligent graphics file having both graphic representations of the parts of articles and embedded data structures defining related reference designations associated with the graphic representations of the same part. The present invention may also provide for automatically displaying parts information corresponding to the part represented by a selected reference designation. The textual parts information may be displayed whether the respective reference designation is pointed to or selected. Furthermore, the parts information may be obtained from a database that stores the textual parts information associated with the parts of the article. The features of the various embodiments of the present invention provide users and electronic graphic system builders with an efficient and accurate approach to creating and viewing intelligent graphics files that include navigation among reference designations for the same part and access to textual information associated with the parts, which completely avoids the time-consuming and expensive steps of the other approaches.